Precognition

Precognition often happens in subtle ways. By raising awareness, you'll start to notice clues that contained within them information about the future. This often happens in the dream state. 

A few days ago, I had a dream about an old friend named Johnny. I haven't seen him in 15 years, but he played a prominent role in a dream that involved me helping him put a bicycle together. The bicycle was yellow. 

I thought nothing of that dream, but that afternoon I got a phone call from a woman whose daughter has been looking for a job. I asked how the job search was going, and she reported that her daughter had probably landed a job at a gym called "Sports and Wellness". Then the woman, who had recently taken a job out of town, asked me to pick up her bicycle for her.

Well it turns out her bicycle was yellow. Not only that, but my friend Johnny-the one I had dreamed about the night before-was a manager at this gym "Sports and Wellness". The same gym where the woman's daughter was getting a job.

Precognition often works in this way, with subtle clues that were in the dream. My belief is that this is a result of information flowing backwards in time through some type of quantum physics effect. 

But interpreting a dream ahead of time is difficult. Precognition in this way gave some clues, but it would have been hard if not impossible to make the leap from dreaming about a friend that worked at "Sports and Wellness"that someone I knew would get a job there. The color of his bicycle was a clue that indicated who the dream was about, but it wasn't enough information to draw conclusions. 

Each morning when you wake up, write down your dreams in a notebook. You might be surprised what clues are in there. A question: do you think by practicing and raising your awareness of precognition in dreams, that your abilities might improve? 

Synchronicity: An interview with the Paraexplorers

Recently the ParaExplorers appeared on Coast to Coast AM for a fascinating discussion about synchronicity, 11:11 and other fascinating topics. I had the pleasure of discussing some of these things in an email "interview" which I am sharing below. 

1) What are "synchronicities" and does everyone experience them?

According to Wikipedia, synchronicity can be defined as “the experience of two or more events which are causally unrelated occurring together in a supposedly meaningful manner. In order to count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance.”

Carl Jung, the originator of the concept, believed there to be an acausal principle linking events with related meaning simply by their coincidence in time, rather than serially. Jung believed that there was a synchrony connecting the human mind and ones perceptions. While many people may consider synchronistic events to be random chance or coincidence, it is important to recognize that it reveals an underlying pattern – one that is all encompassing, and larger in scope than all of us. Synchronicities seem to transcend all barriers – age, belief system, sex, and race.

Throughout ones life, it is quite possible that one will experience this phenomenon at least once. Most of us have these happen very frequently, but we don’t always take notice, which is the biggest hindrance to really benefiting from what they might be pointing us towards, i.e. new opportunities, the right people we need to meet, etc.

2) Would you call a telepathic experience a type of synchronicity, oris this something else? Here is a specific example. I once had a dream that my uncle was very ill, and the next morning awoke to find that he had suffered a stroke. Is that an example of a synchronicity?

Since telepathy is traditionally believed to be an “apparent communication from one mind to another without using sensory perceptions” and synchronicity involves the concepts of both perception and time, it would certainly not be beyond the realm of possibility to suppose that your particular example could very well be an example of a synchronistic event.

As we are discovering, what we have traditionally believed to be our reality is actually far more complex than our simple senses are capable of fully interpreting.

Another possibility, however, is one in which quantum physics may suggest a more comprehensive explanation. Physicist David Bohm’s implicate order proposes that mind and matter are simply projections into our explicate order from the underlying reality of the implicate order. Accordingly, mind and matter are seen as projections into our explicate order from the underlying reality of the implicate order.

This is a new (and still fairly controversial) theory of the universe that proposes the possibility that there is a fundamental level where consciousness is not distinct from matter, and there exists a connective relationship between mind and matter. Basically, Bohm’s theory seeks to connect everything with everything else.

Several analogies abound between his theory and Alain Aspects holographic universe theorem. During controlled scientific experiments, Aspect and his team of researchers discovered that under certain circumstances subatomic particles were able to instantly communicate with each other regardless of the physical distance that might separate them. Whether 1inch or 100 light years away – somehow everything is connected.

In your fictional example, is it possible that perhaps the knowledge of the stroke was actually communicated by our seeming “connectedness” with one another? Is what we have traditionally referred to as “telepathy” simply a natural process of communication via the multidimensional reality of our universe?

3) What role does meaning play in the universe? In other words, a scientist would say "11:11" only has meaning to humans. But do concepts like this have a larger meaning?

What a philosophical conundrum! What role does meaning play in the universe? Certainly, meaning plays a particularly important function to humans. By our very nature, we tend to focus on our personal “purpose” and “meaning” in life. We have a propensity to concentrate all of our energy towards the end result of our lives – our professional accomplishments, social standing, monetary worth, etc.

But why do we seem so intent on wondering what impact these surface issues will impress upon mankind during our relatively short span of life? More importantly, are we alone in pondering these matters? Are rocks, plants, birds, and mice likewise capable of reflecting upon their station in the universe? Or, as many believe does consciousness perhaps play a crucial role? Is the need to assign meaning simply a construct of conscious thought?

Regardless, it is important that we focus upon the journey itself, rather than solely the destination. And we must remember as well that sometimes events occur that have a collective meaning, rather than a personal one. Those events are what change paradigms and shift consciousness and move the entire human race in a different direction, as 9-11 did. At least for awhile!

4) Phenomena like telepathy and synchronicity kind of have a feel like information coming from the future or past. Do you believe that knowledge can flow from the future?

Yes, and quantum and theoretical physics certainly backs this up. Linear time is a construct of the human brain. We write about the Zero Point Field, which we refer to more as a Grid, a structure of different levels of reality that includes the entire landscape of past, present and future. This parallels the Akashic Fields of Edgar Cayce, and the morphic fields of Rupert Sheldrake, but the Zero Point Field is itself described as the source of all sources – a repository of all energy, matter and form. If all the information of the past and future lies within this field, we certainly could be finding ways to access it. Consider the Universe one big hard drive, and some of us are far more adept at computer skills than others!

People who read the future or remote view, therefore, are accessing information within this Field. Again, it is probably something we can all do, but few of us take the time to pay attention to these skills, and actively develop them.

5) Can a person develop higher awareness and their own skills in ESP and telepathy? How would you advise a person to become more aware of synchronicities?

Two words – pay attention. It is as simple as that. Quieting the brain and the monkey mind enough to take notice of what is going on in the present moment is the only way to really begin to see that we are constantly being exposed to information in the form of telepathy and synchronicity, but if we are completely focused on the information we think we need to survive, we will never notice the “other” stuff. Our brains take in very little of the actual information flowing to us, by the very nature of survival. We operate on a “need-to-know” basis, only seeing and perceiving that which helps us live the life in front of us – jobs, money, kids, family, etc.

Slowing down enough to pay attention is key. But so is stepping back from technology and shutting off the cell phone, the iPod, the MP3 player, the Blackberry and Facebook long enough to get in tune with what our intuition is trying to tell us, as well as with those more subtle events that constantly occur just under our radar.

Pay attention. And whether that be by meditation, walking, reading, taking ten minutes a day to shut out the world, or just reminding oneself to stay present, it all works to increase awareness to the other information out there that actually may be more important to us than what we should have for dinner that night.

6) How can a person apply synchronicity in their personal life?

It obviously is trying to alert us to something, so first taking notice of the two or more synchronistic events and seeing if they lead to some breakthrough or to an opportunity one has been waiting for. Sometimes, we don’t know why a synchronicity occurred until much later, when all is revealed and we realize we met our soul mate, got our dream job, or saved our own life because of it. But often the meaning is clear right then and there.

Taking notice, finding the meaning, or at the very least being patient enough to let the meaning unfold…but also, not ignoring these events. Not being lazy and sweeping them under the rug. It does no one any good to have a synchronistic event if they just blow it off and miss the message or opportunity in the event. Perhaps this is why so many people are unhappy. They don’t follow the signs that these events are, guideposts along the way to keep people on the path to their destiny. Ignore the signs, and you might never realize your full potential. That is tragic. These are SIGNS. Follow them and they will no doubt lead to the fulfillment of dreams, big and small.

Harry Dent on Coast to Coast AM

Harry Dent was on Coast to Coast with George Noory tonight, lamenting the terrible state of the economy. Mr Dent just published a book: The Great Depression Ahead: How to Prosper in the Crash Following the Greatest Boom in History. Mr. Dent gave a convincing argument-stating several times about how "we have been predicting" the real estate, banking, and economic crashes that have been happening. Not only that, but Mr. Dent's firm can predict boom and bust cycles all the way out to 2036. Its easy you see, Mr. Dent is a demographer and you just apply demographics to figure out what's going to happen. Don't listen to what any economists have to say. Dent says the economy will rebound a bit in the summer, and then there'll be another stock market crash. 

We're all interested in the economy these days, so I followed the discussion with apt attention. 

After it was over I was curious. I looked up Mr. Dent on Amazon, and found his previous book: The Next Great Bubble Boom: How to Profit from the Greatest Boom in History: 2006-2010. 

Ooops. Looks like Dent's previous proclamations aren't as accurate as he claimed on Coast to Coast. I think this review says all you need to know about Mr. Dent's ability to give economic forecasts:

"Page 73 of this book reads "Our best projection for the Nasdaq is about 13,000 around the end of this decade (2010), but it is possible we could see as high as 20,000." Let's see, the Nasdaq made its way up to 2861 by Oct. 31, 2007 and now sits at 1316 as of Nov. 21, 2008. Now today, I see this guy on TV saying he predicted the current market meltdown and has written a new book due out in Jan. 2009 entitled "The Great Depression Ahead". What a joke."

Synchronicity: The Universe as a Unified Web of Information

The other day I had a strange urge to get some root beer. So I headed to the grocery store and picked up a 6 pack of A & W diet root beer in 16.9 oz bottles. I hadn't had any in a long time so it sure tasted good.

The next morning at work, I noticed my office mate drinking a 16.9 oz bottle of you guessed it-A & W root beer. I said "thats funny, I just got some last night". 

At first sight the skeptic might suggest, after yelling out the word "coincidence", that I had previously seen my office mate drinking A & W root beer. Then I filed it away in my subconscious, where it languished until surfacing in my strange desire to get root beer. But, after telling my office mate about my purchase, he said "yeah yesterday my wife went and got me some, I hadn't had it in years".

Funny little coincidences like this fill our lives-if only we would be aware enough to look for them. But while we might brush them off as having no meaning-as being nothing other than random events-it might pay to learn something about the phenomenon of synchronicity. 

According to the Wikipedia entry on synchronicity, the definition is as follows:

"Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which are causally unrelated occurring together in a supposedly meaningful manner. In order to count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance."

Scientists are generally skeptical of this notion. To them, causality is a rigorous A ---> B phenomenon where A and B have to be in physical contact. To them, the universe has no meaning, its just a machine-a cog in which we find ourselves experiencing our lives, and that experience is just an illusion.

Of course most of us know better and what's really interesting is that science itself-although its slow to recognize this-is actually coming in line with what people experience as synchronicity. The mechanism? Quantum physics.

Within the branch of science known as quantum mechanics there exists a curious phenomenon-perhaps the most important discovered in the 20th century-something called entanglement. 

When two particles interact, they become connected. But this connection doesn't exist in the conventional sense of science. The particles are not connected by some kind of light or radio signal. There is no "force" between them. They can be separated across the universe and the connection will hold. What has happened is that two particles-once separate-have become one. Their separate identities have vanished and in their place, there exists a unified whole.

If subatomic particles can become entangled then there can be no doubt that its possible for anything that exists in the universe to become entangled-including minds. But what is it that flows between entangled particles? Its information. And that is what synchronicity is all about.

Synchronicity is the flow of information through the universe. Sometimes the information might be clear, sometimes it might be fuzzy, sometimes it may be symbolic or at other times it might have trivial meaning. That's how conscious decisions like two people, not in direct contact, come up with the same "coincidental" idea-buy root beer. 

The universe exists not as a collection of separate entities, but as a continuous, unbroken whole. The most important part of the universe is not the materialistic world of subatomic particles and mindless forces, no-its information. When it boils down to it information is all there is. Indeed what is a person? As Lee Smolin pointed out in his book Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, a person isn't an object- a person is a story. And what is a story? Its nothing but information.

Big Bang Theory and the Fate of the Universe

The big bang theory, something controversial only among American creationists, is seen by scientists as a fact about how the universe began. The only question that remains is perhaps why the big bang occurred and what the ultimate fate of the universe may be.

We live in a remarkable time when these questions may finally be answered. It was only 20 years ago when the famed Stephen Hawking wrote his book A Brief History of Time, a book in which he discussed the possible fates of the universe: Will it expand forever, or will it collapse back in on itself?

The latter possibility brought with it a great deal of mind-bending concepts, and it was the possibility that Hawking favored on theoretical grounds at the time. He saw a universe which had always existed for all time, and the big bang was just one point in an endless cycle of universal death and rebirth.

When the big bang theory is viewed in this way, the universe starts off with a big bang and begins expanding. If the laws of physics allow it, stars, galaxies and planets will form, many of them presumably graced with life. The universe will expand to a certain maximum point at which the combined gravity of everything in it takes over, causing it to begin to collapse back down. In a process that reverses everything that happened up to this point, the universe will shrink back down to a point. Scientists called this the "big crunch". From here, the universe will rebound in another big bang and expand once more in a new cycle.

One aspect of this theory is that the universe can exist independently of anything else. The mind bending question of where the universe came from has no meaning-it has always been here. As Hawking talks about in his book-if the universe is this way there really isn't anything for a God to do. Proving the universe followed this kind of cycle would in effect be proof for the position of atheism.

The theory also left room for some bizarre consequences. For example, would time run backwards during the collapse? Or how about this: is the universe doomed to endlessly recycle everything? In other words the universe is born in a big bang, expands to the maximum point, and then collapses only to replay the same story again. As the universe collapses it would play out a bizarre world that makes no sense to human consciousness as time flowed backward, your life ran backward and effects preceded causes. Each time through the cycle, at the same point you appeared before, you would live out your life once more in deterministic fashion completely unaware of the trillions of trillions of times this all happened before, and would happen endlessly in the future.

Or how about this. Maybe at the "cusp", the point between collapse and renewed expansion, the laws of physics are scrambled, and each time a completely new kind of universe is born.

Another possibility-the laws of physics are the same, but the universe just plays out a similar, but different history. This has happened an infinite number of times, so infinite numbers of intelligent beings and civilizations have arisen, only to be completely destroyed-all evidence of them and whatever they learned erased-at the next crunch-bang cycle.

All of this was put to moot when the big bang theory took a new twist in the late 1990s. It was then that astronomers discovered that not only was the universe expanding, but that expansion is accelerating. It now seems that as time goes on, the universe will expand faster and faster so that clusters of galaxies will simply get further and further away from each other as time goes on. There is no chance for gravity to pull back on the universe and cause it to collapse. The universe, it seems, is destined to simply cool off and fade away, to die and ice cold death in a dark world where life is no longer possible.

These discoveries lead to an intriguing possibility. Now that we know this is happening, its fair to say the universe is a one time, unique event. Does this harken to a creator? The physical universe may die, but what of spirit?

Save the Economy with a Trip to Mars

Watching the government trying to help us with the economy in a tailspin doesn't always inspire confidence. Despite having already pumped out hundreds of billions of dollars-the financial system remains in disarray and the auto companies are back in line for more handouts. As unemployment keeps rising, its clear we've got to do something, and besides the government, nobody else is really in a position to act.

Looking to history for guidance, the Obama Administration and the Democrats have crafted a New Deal style package to save us with government public works projects. While this is a great start, its important to think about the Great Depression and what really ended it. Truth is, Roosevelt's big government social programs may have saved many people from starvation and homelessness, but they did not rescue the economy. Obama's stimulus package can be viewed at best as a stop-gap measure to keep us from crashing too hard. 

Let's really take a look at the Great Depression. What got us out of it? Well the answer is obvious. World War 2. 

So what was it about World War 2 that put a stop to the depression? It was massive government spending. But not the kind Obama and Congress are talking about-the kind of spending World War 2 generated was money for industrial output, scientific research, and let's not forget the "employment" of millions of young men that were sent off to fight the battles. To save the economy, if the government is going to do it there's going to have to be a MASSIVE infusion of cash-and its going to have to be quality cash. The meaning of quality cash will be explained in a moment. 

In other words what's needed today is a situation that mimics what the government really did to end the Great Depression. And as much as I admire Roosevelt, it wasn't his social programs and road projects that did it. All those programs did was keep the skid from going to far down the abyss. Huge military spending is what ended the depression. But this spending not only differed from the "New Deal" in scale, it differed in character. 

Hire a guy to build a road at $10/Hour, and he can put food on the table. Hire engineers and technicians to design new aircraft, and quality laborers to build them, and you're creating a workforce that can buy cars, buy houses, buy new televisions and take other actions that jump start the economy.  

If the economy can't right itself on its own with a push from the stimulus package, what we're going to need is a situation that mimics World War 2. Hopefully things won't deteriorate so much that another large scale war is the result. Let's not wait for that but instead act now with government programs that jump start industrial production and scientific research. Let's take a trip to Mars.

At first sight such a program would seem incredibly frivolous. But really ramping NASA up for serious space exploration would have reverberating effects throughout the economy. Right now NASA is already putting some of this in place with their Apollo-like replacement of the shuttle that might someday go to the moon, but that kind of effort is tiny compared to what would really be needed to take a trip to Mars. 

Such an effort would open up thousands of jobs. Spacecraft and supporting systems would have to be designed, giving thousands of engineers work. New facilities would have to be constructed, giving people the kind of jobs the stimulus package is already proposing. When you build huge new government facilities then you need janitors, restaurants to serve all the workers, and new housing. With good jobs all these new NASA employees would go out and buy cars. Its a win-win situation that would actually trigger economic growth.

Now of course pumping money into NASA isn't going to do it all on its own. But we have a lot of high tech needs. The white elephant in the room is of course energy. 

So the second part of the governments attempt to mimic World War 2 should be massive infusions of cash into private companies and government research labs for energy research. Money should be provided for entrepreneurs who focus their efforts on innovative energy products and transportation. 

Once again, this type of effort would create high-paying jobs for engineers, administrators, and technicians. New facilities would have to be built. Janitors would have to be hired, and again restaurants and laundromats would spring up around all these new shiny research facilities. The newly employed people would all go out and buy cars and televisions.  If you really want to help out "Joe Six-Pack" don't give him a $10 an hour job building a road, give him a good job at a solar energy research facility that can inspire and save us from future disaster. 

The only ingredient missing from this analogy is the large-scale "employment" that the war provided by shipping young men off to the military. Maybe we can think of something to mimic this too that doesn't involve killing people. 

Unfortunately the politicians never disappoint when it comes to a lack of imagination. Can you imagine a group of congressmen calling a news conference to demand a new energy research lab and $100 billion for entrepreneurs who devote themselves to renewable energy? Instead what we see is the same old show-Democrats pumping money into health-care, "education" and other feel-good social programs. The Republicans, instead of responding with imaginative leadership just complain and act like they're not going to go along. My fear is the government won't really be able to save us and the economy will stagnate for years, maybe even a decade or more. Who knows how bad its really going to get. Maybe a large scale war will be needed to end it all. 

The Spoonbender Uri Geller

I have to admit I was a bit surprised a few months ago when I found out that the infamous Uri Geller is still around. For those of you who don't know, Uri Geller was a magician/paranormalist that became famous back in the 1960s and 70s.

Gellers claim to fame was supposed ability to do telekenesis. What could Geller do? Well he could bend spoons.

Spoon bending might not seem like much of a talent, but Geller supposedly did this with his mind (although he had hold the spoon in his hand to do it, go figure). And back then for some reason this seemed "spooky" and really entertaining to a lot of people. Why this amazing talent wasn't applied to anything more substantial than bending a spoon-that was never explained.

Geller came crashing down one day in the 1970s when he went on the Johnny Carson show. You see, Geller normally brought his own set of silverware and salt and pepper shakers to demonstrate his talents. But Johnny Carson kind of suspected that Geller was faking it. So when Geller came out on the stage, Carson had his own set of eating utensils already there for Geller to work with.

Geller had already been all over television and performing on stage bending spoons over and over again, so the crowd was amazed when on Johnny Carson, Geller wasn't up for it. Its been a long time (30 years?) but as I recall Geller announced he "wans't feeling it tonight" or something like that.

The episode may have been done in conjunction with skeptic-magician James Randi, who was pretty good at bending spoons on his own and revealed the method used to the public-and it didn't require any mysterious psychic energies. This basically discredited Geller and he more or less faded away, or so I thought.

Not too long ago there were some blurbs in the news that revealed that Uri Geller had become close friends with mega-looney Michael Jackson. As CBS News Reported:

CBS) There are two things you need to know about psychic Uri Geller. One is that he can still do the spoon trick that made him famous all over the world.

The other thing you need to know is that it was Geller’s signature spoon trick that made him and Michael Jackson fast friends.

“When Michael was a teenager, he read about me in American text books and school books, and I think he always wanted to meet me to see how I bend a spoon or read a mind,” says Geller.

This was in about 2005. So 25 years later, Geller is still sticking to his spoon bending stories. How lame is that? You have this talent for bending spoons, but after an entire lifetime you never get better at it?

The other day I was feeling curious about Geller and searched for him in google, and found his blog which you can visit below. I guess its too hard to get famous worldwide for doing something as stupid as bending a spoon, so it would be really hard to admit you were faking it.

Visit the blog and decide for yourself. Is Geller a fraud, a loser or misunderstood?

Uri Geller Blog

Area 51 Guru Bob Lazar on Alien Technology

In this video, Bob Lazar of Area 51 fame supposedly explains how the UFO engine works. This sounds implausible. He starts with the claim that the device has "element 115" in it, an element with a half life of something like 87 microseconds. Eighty-seven microseconds? So you're going to have a fuel that completely decays into something else in just a few minutes and you're going to travel across the galaxy with it? 

Then he claims that you bombard it with protons and create "element 116" and release anti-matter, something that sounds silly considering the known laws of physics. I'm sure we don't know all the laws of physics by any means, but given what we do know this sounds completely false. 

Well here is Bob Lazar explaining the process in his own words, sounding very credible:

Is New Jersey The New Area 51? Secret UFO Base?

Good point, aliens travel across the galaxy to visit New Jersey? lol

"Once again, mysterious red lights in the sky have residents in north-central New Jersey scratching their heads.

    The callers say they saw as many as 10 red lights floating in the sky, moving in unison and in the same direction as the wind from about 8:45 p.m. to 9 p.m.

    No one knows where the lights are coming from, but a Michigan-based maker of Sky Lanterns says it could be his product. The lanterns have balloons and wax-infused cloth and are set aloft during celebrations." The Associated Press

Full Story Here

Meet the Phoenix UFO hunters

he best-kept secret of the UFO phenomenon has always been the unsung effort of local Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) state and section directors. Their effort is composed mostly of normal everyday tasks, such as keeping a section's bank account in the black, finding venues, arranging for speakers, organizing skywatches, maintaining a website, keeping track of the myriad details that make any volunteer organization run. And this does not include hours spent keeping up to date on current research.

What is remarkable is that every quarter generation or so, a new cadre of volunteers take on that responsibility and keep the process moving forward. Seemingly, human determination to resolve the unresolvable will not cease. Which is a good thing, because neither does reports of unusual and unidentified objects in the sky, which increase at a substantial rate worldwide each year.

Full Story Here

Can Extrasensory Perception (ESP) be Incorporated into Science?

ESP-or extrasensory perception has long eluded science. Despite this people continue to believe in it, in large numbers. Many people claim to have experienced it or know someone who has. Yet scientists remain skeptical.

Information about the external world is conveyed to our brains through our senses-sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. These senses are activated in one of two ways-through direct physical contact (touch-smell-taste) or by energy transfer over distances. We see because electromagnetic waves (photons) travel from one place to another. Hearing works in a similar way-information travels from one point to another by sound waves which move through the air.

While you can see something far away, the information about that object has to travel from the object to your eye. This isn't much different than how a radio works. The radio station transmits a signal, which is also a kind of electromagnetic wave, which travels through the air and is picked up by your radio. There is nothing "magical" about this process, energy moves through space in a cause-and-effect fashion.

Many people, however, claim to be able to see into the future. Others may claim to read minds, or be able to see into buildings or rooms they've never physically entered. These types of claims fall into the realm of extra-sensory perception, since the five basic senses aren't used. Information becomes available to a person in some way that is unknown to science.

Scientists, at least in the United States, are not impressed by ESP. First of all the concept of ESP does not fit into the world view of most scientists. As a result they come to the table already skeptical, and many will just dismiss it out of hand.

But to their credit, some scientists have tested claims of ESP. Unfortunately they have not come up with any scientific confirmation that ESP exists. Believers say that the process of scientific testing, in and of itself, interferes with extra-sensory perception. With the possible exception of results obtained at the now defunct Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab (which has since been replaced with the International Consciousness Research Laboratories), scientists have not been able to detect telepathy or ESP phenomena.

Scientists might be a little more open-minded in other countries. In Britain, for example, five major universities actually have parapsychology departments.

To sum up, extra-sensory perception simply does not fit into the classical scientific world view. If ESP is real, however, this shouldn't matter. Scientific testing should discover any effects, if they exist, by conducting appropriately designed experiments. A positive result would force scientists to revamp their theories, but so far there hasn't been any. Believers say this is because the testing itself is flawed. If the testing is flawed, is there some way that ESP could be understood in terms of modern science?

The Quantum Theory
It turns out there is. Quantum mechanics is a major branch of the science of physics. It describes the properties and behavior of small particles such as atoms, nuclear particles, electrons, and photons (light). What's amazing about quantum theory is that it predicts that particles can become "entangled". Once they do, they can interact over vast distances.

When two particles become entangled, they become connected or linked. This link does not depend on any energy traveling from one particle to the other. Think about what this means when talking about the senses. Earlier we mentioned that sight and sound kind of work like a radio station transmitting its signal to your car radio or radio at home. Information or energy has to travel from one place to another. To see something, a photon has to travel from the object you're looking at to your eye.

But with extra-sensory perception, there is no known signal. Someone suddenly "knows" something about the future. Maybe it comes in a dream. Or someone uses remote viewing to "see" into another room. There is nothing connecting the information from the other room or the future to the mind in the present.

Or is there? Quantum entanglement may not necessarily be the answer, but it opens the door to the possibility that ESP can fit within modern science. Quantum entanglement proves that particles can become connected over vast distances of space. Currently, scientists don't know how to use quantum entanglement to share information or whether that's even possible. But they do know, and it is actually an experimental fact-that particles to become linked together in this funny way. Einstein called it "spooky action at a distance". To a scientists mind, it sure seems spooky that two particles-on different sides of the universe-could be talking to each other without a signal passing between them.

What this means is that perhaps quantum entanglement or something like it yet to be discovered underlies the phenomenon of ESP. Interestingly, quantum entanglement also sheds light on the idea that scientific testing interferes with ESP. Quantum entanglement, while it happens, is fragile in a sense. If one of the two particles interacts with a third particle, the original connection between the two entangled particles can be broken. In other words, the entanglement is destroyed by outside interactions.

Could it be that telepathy and ESP work in the same way? Perhaps ESP works by a similar type of deep yet fragile connection. When a scientist attempts to test a subject, the scientist may break the "telepathic entanglement" between the subject and the object of interest.

Quantum entanglement may not prove the existence of ESP, but it points the way to a plausible scientific explanation. Most scientists will remain skeptical, but people continue to believe. Perhaps someday this question can be resolved scientifically.

Image from StockXpert.com

Can Computers Become Conscious?

If computers are complex enough, will they attain consciousness someday? And what would that mean for humanity?

According to some experts, like Ray Kurzweil, the answer is not a question of if its a question of when. According to Kurzweil we are fast approaching a milestone he calls the "singularity", a point at which the complexity and intelligence of computers will suddenly shift to an era of "superintelligence". Presumably, this will even lead to fully conscious computers, with an intelligence that far outstrips our own.

So how can we determine whether Kurzweil and others who hold this view are really in touch with reality?

On some level I think they've been watching too many science fiction movies. Now lets state up front that as a matter of basic principle, there is nothing we know of that would prevent the development of an intelligent computer. If a computer were made complex enough with the right hardware, it would seem that at the very least, a computer could be constructed that would appear conscious. Whether it really would be conscious is something open to debate, and the truth is nobody has a clue as to what the answer is. But you could imagine that given enough power, resources, and complexity-a computer could be constructed that would behave as if conscious.

It seems obvious that such a machine would outperform humans at every turn. Computers can obviously process information a lot faster than the human brain. But is that all it takes?

Todays computers still do not much besides rote calculations. They are damn good at it, but does adding numbers quickly have anything to do with intelligence? I would say it does not. Sure a computer can do a calculation much faster than your brain can, but that's not the point.

What makes human intelligence special is not rote calculation but understanding meaning. For instance, a computer can easily solve Schrodinger's equation from quantum mechanics. A smart human can solve it too, but will have a much harder time than the computer. But only the human can attach any meaning to Schrodinger's equation. A computer can spit out numbers,and print out graphs and charts of solutions to Schrodinger's equation, but it can't learn anything about the role knowledge or conscious observers may play in the universe-something that is contained in quantum theory on a subtle level.

So it seems that something quite different is going on in a human brain that isn't going on in computers as they've been constructed so far. Some people have attacked the problem head on-this is the program of "Artificial Intelligence" or AI for example. But while a lot has been learned and progress has been made, AI has failed to deliver the way it was expected to. Here in 2009 AI is no closer to delivering any kind of "singularity" than it was 20 years ago.

An interesting question that is probably unanswerable is the following: does conscious experience depend on the medium used to express it? One fact we know in this debate is that brains (human or otherwise) give rise to conscious experience. Nobody really knows how, but we do know brains are involved and have mapped out what parts are doing what (such as the visual cortex for example). The question of the hour: Is there something unique to brains that does this? If we construct a really "complex" computer out of silicon or superconductors or whatever, will it attain conscious experience too?

Scientific materialists would no doubt say yes, proclaiming that the vague concept of "complexity" leads to consciousness. So make a silicon wafer with enough transistors arranged in the right way, that is "complex" enough, and you could construct a conscious computer.

The spiritual among us might be inclined to answer differently. "Complexity" is really science-speak for we have no fucking idea. Its a meaningless concept that doesn't explain anything, it is simply a restatement of an observed fact that complex brains appear to be conscious. But is complexity really necessary? How do you know a spider isn't conscious? You may be shaking your head in disbelief at this "silly" proposition, but what empirical evidence is there on the question?

If we simply observe the behavior of a spider, it seems to behave in ways that have given computer scientists fits. If the scientists could construct a computer that behaved exactly as a spider-a spider android that an expert (say a biologist specializing in spiders) could not differentiate from a real spider-an arachnid Turing test if you will-they would have made fantastic progress. Honestly, even this seems unlikely. Making the leap to a human or something far surpassing the human is quite a jump above this. So it would seem that the "singularity" is as far away as ever-a fantasy in the minds of geeks.

It may be that there is something about consciousness we simply don't understand. Perhaps it is not possible to make a computer conscious at all. After all there is something different about a spider, a mouse, a dog, a chimpanzee and a human as compared to any computer. We know this intuitively even if it can't be quantified scientifically.

If the singularity is a real phenomenon, this isn't necessarily a good thing. Kurzweil often says that people will trade real experience for "virtual" experience. People will be "enhanced". So instead of learning Spanish, a chip is connected to your brain that lets you speak it without having gone through the trouble to learn it. Instead of going rock climbing, you can do a computer simulation of rock climbing. Instead of meeting your friends for "real", you will meet in a virtual bar for virtual drinks. All of this being directed by superintelligent machines, who may of course have their own motives that might not include entertaining humans.

The kind of world envisioned by the technophiles of the Kurzweil variety isn't necessarily a good world. Part of being human isn't just being able to speak two languages, in fact the learning process is a large part of it. Allowing people to just pick up Spanish by putting a chip in their head takes away this aspect of humanity.

Part of being human is also having real experience. A rock climbing simulation in a computer might be safer, but the value of such a thing is dubious compared to really rock climbing. And I would rather meet friends in person than in a virtual night club.

Only time will tell whether or not computers become conscious. Let's hope that if they do, they don't decide to dispense with humanity. Biological life might just get in their way.

Image from Stockxpert

Tonight on Coast to Coast AM Robert Hastings

Tonights guest on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory is Robert Hastings, a UFO researcher who claims there is a link between nuclear weapons and the appearance of UFO's. He has interviewed numerous U.S. Air Force personnel who claim to have had "encounters" with UFO's. 

You can read about this on his website:

Robert Hastings

Life after death: Is there a single unified consciousness?o the mind, when someone dies?

What happens to the mind when we die?

And where did the mind come from? 

To an atheist or scientific materialist this question sounds nonsensical. To them, the mind dies when the brain dies. The mind is the brain and the brain is the mind. The brain, being a temporary and purely material object, takes the mind with it when we die.

But what if the universe itself were conscious, and a brain merely taps into that conscious web during its existence? Today I am going to discuss some ideas inspired by David Darlings excellent book, Equations of Eternity.

This is an idea that has merit not only scientifically, but spiritually. A biologist who was a scientific materialist would tell us that the brain is just a product of evolution, providing its owner with a tool that enhances survival. Organisms that have better brains are better suited to their environments, leave more offspring and so on. Over time, brains have become more complex because its advantageous to do so. Consciousness is no more than a mere accident, something that happened to come along arising out of complexity that happened to be very good at enhancing survival and reproduction.

But to see that consciousness might have a role beyond simply enhancing the survival and reproductive value of its owner, lets turn to the eastern religions. In particular some concepts from Hinduism can shed light on the nature and role of consciousness.

The first concept from Hinduism that is interesting to contemplate is that of Maya. In a nutshell, Maya describes to what Hindus is an illusion: that is the world of objects and people around us are real. In other words, the material world you touch, see, and hear is an illusion. What is real if the objects and people of the world are illusions? According to this concept, our minds have made up and classified the objects we see in the material world. The universe does not really consist of individual, separate and unchanging objects. Instead the universe is one unbroken whole, and its is dynamic: the world is in constant flux.

In fact this idea is completely consistent with what modern science has taught us. As Lee Smolin wrote, the universe doesn't consist of objects, it consistes of processes. Everything around us is completely dynamic and in a constant state of change. Atoms and molecules assemble, dissolve, and reassemble in different ways. People are born, live, and die. Species evolve and change into something completely different as time passes. Even the sun evolved and will eventually die.

Not only that, but in reality there are no separate objects in the universe. Physics tells us that the universe can be seen as having a kind of dualism. This is not strictly the “Wave-particle” dualism of the quantum theory. Instead we call on quantum field theory, which tells us that the universe doesn't really consist of discrete, hard particles. What is really real, at a fundamental level are fields which fill all of spacetime. This is consistent with Maya.

That isn't to say particles, objects, or people aren't real. But we acknowledge that their particular form is transitory-and nothing ever really didn't exist or was born or ceases to exists or dies-instead “things” in the universe are part of an ever-changing process. The atoms and molecules in your body always existed-they have done so since the beginning of time. Could it be that the mind or and individual is part of a universal consciousness field, and that an arrangement of atoms can reveal it , rather than cause it to come forth through some vague concept like “emergence” from a materialist world?

So from the perspective of Hinduism, we face the fact that individuals are temporary and transient in nature, but at the same time we are part of an unbroken whole which has always been here-the universe. The Hindu calls this unbroken whole “Brahman”.

Something else to think about is how can it be that consciousness just arose in a dead universe? For consciousness to arise from the universe, consciousness must be part of the universe itself. Nothing can happen in the universe that does not violate the laws of physics. Here are a couple of quotes from Darling's book to help you think about the ideas here:

“Each of us is a microcosm of nature, and in more than one sense. First, the same processes—the same types of particles and the forces that act between them—occur in our bodies as in the universe at large. Second, through our minds we reconstruct and mirror in abstract form that which lies outside ourselves. And third, most intriguingly, our own personal evolution parallels the evolution of life on earth.”

I would like to add to that that our own brains mirror what the universe at large is doing. A universe that produces conscious minds has at its core consciousness and mind as one of its fundamental properies. This goes back to the Hindu ideas-God died and became the universe-which becomes God again.

Remember too the notion—no the fact--that the universe is an unbroken whole. Another intriguing quote from Darling:

“Whatever a newborn child does, the universe at large does also, because a human baby—like everything else—is an intrinsic part of the cosmos. That may seem like a strange claim to make, but it is logically and physically sound. A factory in which cars are made is a car-making factory. A planet on which there is life is a living planet because the life-forms are a part and a product of the world's substance. And, on the grandest of all scales, if there is sentience within the cosmos then the cosmos itself is sentient. So we may reasonably view an infant's dawning awareness on two levels: as a consciousness arising in the individual, and, simultaneously in the universe as a whole.”

This is deep stuff here. Also think about this. As the population has increased and as computers become more intelligent, the universe at large becomes more conscious. Or was that concsiousness already there, and merely being mapped into the form of individuals?

Its hard to say what these ideas mean for life after death-that is discrete survival of the individual-but its clear that there may be a universal web of consciousness that exists throughout space and for all time.

Check out David Darlings Book Here

Could Ghosts and Spirits be Interdimensional Beings?

What if the world of direct physical experience were immersed in a higher dimensional universe? And what if those higher or extra-dimensions were inhabited by higher-dimensional beings? Would we view them as ghosts or spirits? Would they appear to be aliens with strange powers?

The world of direct sensory experience consists of three spatial dimensions: up-down, left-right, and backward-forward. In addition, there is one time dimension-a mysterious and as yet unexplained part of the physical universe to which our life history, memories and indeed our destiny is tied. But while that may seem like the whole story, scientists are telling us that the universe may contain as many as 9 or maybe even 10 additional spatial dimensions. If life can exist in our three dimensional part of the universe, is it possible that there are higher-dimensional beings? From our vantage point, this is really hard to imagine. Higher spatial dimensions-if they exist-could only be experienced by us in a shadowy sense and best, and probably only described mathematically.

To understand what kind of relationship higher-dimensional beings would have to our ordinary world of experience, we have to do a thought experiment and take a step down-a step down to a two-dimensional world where everything is flat. When we get there, we can build up a picture of how higher-dimensional beings would interact with their low-dimensional counterparts. Such a world was described in the breakthrough PBS series Cosmos created and hosted by astronomer Carl Sagan. There he related the interesting tale of flatland:

“Let us imagine we inhabit a strange country where everyone is perfectly flat. Following Edwin Abbott, a Sharkespearean scholar who lived in Victorian England, we callit Flatland. Some of us are square; some are triang;es, some have more complex shapes We scurry about, in and out of our flat buildings, occupied with our flat businesses and dallianes. Everyone in Flatland has width and length, but no height whatsoever”

With no height nor ability to travel throught the third dimension, flatlanders have no hint-not even a remote concept of what up and down is or what it would be like to travel though the third dimension (that is, except flatlander mathematicians and science-fiction writers). Imagine for a moment that this flat world existed on top of your dining room table. The flatlanders would be confined to the surface of the table. They could never leave it, not move up or down, or perceive the three-dimensional world that takes up the rest of the room.

As Sagan relates, the perceptions of flatlander creatures are limited by being constrained to move in 2 dimensions:

“Every square creature in Flatland sees another square as merely a short line segment, the side of the square nearest to him. He can see the other side of the square only by taking a short walk. But the inside of the square is forever mysterious, unless some terrible accident or autopsy breaches the sides and exposes the interior parts.”

Now imagine that you, a third dimenional observer, enter the room and look at the flatlander world on your dining room table. Imagine the powers you would have! You could hover over the flatlanders and observe them at will. You could see inside closed rooms in their flat houses, even viewing the insides of their bodies. This could be done all at once and you could have knowledge about their entire world and aspects of it that were completely closed off to their ordinary senses. Hovering over the top of their flat world-something you can do because you can move up and down and exist in the third, higher dimension, you could see not only inside closed rooms or inside their bodies, but all at once you could view widely separated events occuring in flatland. Doesn't all this sound a little like telepathy, remote viewing, and ESP?

To describe the interactions between a being in the third dimension and the flatlanders, Sagan envisions and imaginary three-dimensional creature that's an apple. The apple comes upon flatland and says hello to a square who has shut himself alone inside his house. The apple tells the square that he is a “visitor from the third dimension”. With the apple hovering over flatland as he talks, although the apple sees the square just a few inches away, the square, being a two-dimensional creature, can't directly perceive the apple. The square can only perceive aspects of the apple that interact with his two-dimensional world. The square can hear the voice, but has no idea where it is coming from. And remember the square has shut himself inside his house! In fact, Sagan claims that the voice will appear to have come from inside the square's own body. He is hearing voices in his head. Are people that hear voices in their heads sometimes getting messages from higher-dimensional beings?

The square thinks he's losing it, and the apple, eager to make contact, gets frustrated. So he decides to enter flatland directly. As Sagan describes it:

“...the apple descends into flatland. Now a three-dimensional creature can exist, in Flatland, only partially; only a cross section can be seen, only the points of contact with the plane surface of Flatland. An apple sliterhing through Flatland would appear first as a point and then as progressively larger, roughly circular slices. The square sees a point appearing in a clsoed room in his two-dimensional world and slwoing growing into a near circle. A creature of strange and changing shape has appeared form nowhere.”

Wow, deep stuff here. Let's say that again. The higher dimensional being, as seen by the lower dimensional being, just appears out of nowhere, changes form and shape in a bizarre fashion and then disappears as he exits flatland. From the square's point of view, the apple just appeared and disappered from nowhere.

This sounds quite a bit like many paranormal phenomena, like ghosts, spirits, and even some descriptions of aliens and UFO's. Can it be possible that there are higher dimensional beings inhabiting realms we are only dimly aware of? These beings, like a three-dimensional creature observing Flatland, would have total awareness and perceptions of our world we could only dream of-because we are trapped in it and they are not. They could see everything we are doing (even into our bodies), observe widely separated parts of our world simultaneously, and appear to enter and leave our world at will. When they did so, it would seem strange and mysterious because we couldn't observe or perceive their entire body, we would only see aspects of it that directly interacted with our three-dimensional world.

Scientists love to talk about “extra” or “higher” dimensions but they steer clear of the concept of higher dimensional entities. While this is pure speculation, it could be that beings do inhabit other dimensional realms and maybe consciousness itself does.

Sagan quotes from Cosmos, Copyright 1980 Ballantine Publishing Group. Image "Spirit of the Night" by John Grimshaw, available here. 

Tonight on Coast to Coast AM: Ed Grimsley

In what's sure to be another night of great late-night radio on coast to coast AM, George Noory will be joined by UFO hunter Ed Grimsley. 

Mr. Grimsley has long seen UFOs in the night sky and claims that UFOs in the night sky are engaged in some kind of battle. This has to be among the boldest of UFO claims, but Grimsley invites anyone to get a set of night vision goggles and head up to his place for a show. In fact if you're interested in joining his "night vision" skywatch drop him an email at: ed@edgrimsley.com.

With Jose Escamilla, Ed has produced a soon-to-be-released movie called UFO-The Greatest Story Ever Denied: Moon Rising. If you're at all interested in the phenomenon of UFOs, don't miss Ed on the second hour of tonights Coast to Coast AM. 

Atheist Bus Tour: Richard Dawkins is an Arrogant Douchebag

One of the dumbest things to make the news lately is the so-called Atheist bus tour. OK you don't believe in God. That's your business. But why do you care enough to put ads on the sides of buses?

The desire the proseletyze shows athiests for what they are: religious believers. A person is free to choose not to believe in God, or to think its ridiculous, but you can never prove that there is no God. So making an absolute statement that there is no God is a statement of religious belief.

This brings to mind a famous quote of Carl Sagan's which has been adopted by the SETI community. Sagan and his followers rightly point out that just because no objective scientific evidence of intelligent extra-terrestrials is known by the scientific community, that doesn't mean aliens don't exist. They capture this sentiment with a single phrase:

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”

Very interesting. There is a lot of truth to this phrase. Scientists have yet to detect any radio signals from aliens (unless the government is covering it up) but that really doesn't say anything as to whether intelligent aliens exist or not. We simply don't know.

OK what's amusing is that that same phrase could be applied to the God question. Let's pretend we're talking about the existence of God, and take the position that there is no objective scientific evidence fo the existence of God. But despite this, we could continue to believe in God and say “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. The athiest zealots would find this absurd. Yet they find it perfectly reasonable when discussed within the context of benevolent extra-terrestrials who want to send us a radio message from across the universe.

Agnosticism is a reasonable position. Its also reasonable to take the position that you doubt there is a God, but the question is really beyond answering. How could anyone possibly know the answer to this question? I mean KNOW-that is have absolute certain knowledge of fact or fiction? It is not possible to know whether the big-bang “just happened” or whether it was caused by an outside force or being. Its not possible to know whether the laws of physics (which certainly seem to be by design) are just “there”, just exist for no reason, or whether they have actually been designed by some outside super-intelligence. On both sides of the argument you have extreme zealots. Creationist Christian wackos who KNOW with absolute certainty that their personal God did all the work, and on the other side are the Atheist zealots, equally vehement about their beliefs. And as the silly atheist bus tour shows, equally committed to forcing everyone else to adopt their point of view. And it is a point of view-no atheist really knows anything whatsoever about whether a God created the universe or not.

Well it seems that wherever vehement atheism rears its ugly head one finds the arrogant ass Richard Dawkins-one of if not the leading atheist evangelist. Now lets not forget to give credit where credits due. Dawkins is certainly a smart guy and probably a great biologist. I've read a few of his books and they were decently written, not bad but not the best popular science books out there.

So the guy has some things going for him. That being said, Dawkins seems completely unable to engage people who disagree with his point-of-view with any kind of respect or intellectual honestly. Dawkins, who knows everything about the universe, doesn't hesitate to treat any believer like they're a 5 year old being told they shouldn't believe in Santa Claus. Maybe that's being generous. Dawkins seems completely unable to put a veil of any kind over his attitude that anybody who believes in God is a complete moron. In one lecture a college student asks Dawkins “what if you're wrong” and he responds by saying “what if you're wrong about the great ju-ju at the bottom of the sea”. Are you kidding? This is an intellectual, a smart man in debate? Dawkins routinely reacts to people who don't hold his point of view by attacking them as idiots. His response to the college student was not much different than what I would expect a 13 year old to say.

When it comes down to it the reality is atheism is a religion just as much as evangelism is. A reasonable position is to be an agnostic. How could Richard Dawkins or anyone else possibly know with certainty there is no God? The issue of God is one that requires deep thought and reflection. Yes there is overwhelming scientific evidence for the big-bang and evolution, but we have no idea and may never have any idea (scientifically speaking) why the universe or life exists at all, or whether or not there is a creative force behind it. So lets just admit that different people hold different beliefs, and agree to respect those beliefs.   

SETI : Should we let Aliens find us?

Scientists are busy searching the stars for alien signals. They have even beamed a signal from earth hoping aliens might notice us. But is this a good idea?

The search for extra-terrestrial intelligence orSETI is an ambitious attempt by scientists to make contact with aliens by studying the heavens using radio telescopes. So far SETI has not met with any success, but that doesn't mean there are no aliens out there.

 

What many people don't realize is that SETI can only detect a very powerful signal that has been sent on purpose to announce the presence of the civlization. That's because to detect the signals of everyday life, like an ordinary analog TV transmission, you would need a huge radio dish that would be impractical and too expensive to justify. If there were a budding technological civilization even at the nearest star, transmitting simple radio signals using early 1900's technology, we might not be able to detect their presence. Finding a civilization like ours that was 50, 100, or 1,000 light years distant would be next to impossible.

So what scientists do is look for signals beamed into space on a particular frequency band that would be designed for detection. In the early days of the program, scientists not only focused on signals purposefly sent our way, but searched for radio signals in a band of frequencies related to energy transitions in the hydrogen atom. The idea was that aliens, having personalities exactly like astronomers on earth, would transmit a signal in this frequency band hoping to be discovered. In other words they would long for contact as we do, and use this frequency band to get noticed. For scientific reasons we won't get into here, if you wanted to be discovered by other civilizations you might in fact consider this because it would get you noticed by an advanced civilization that was studying astronomy using radio telescopes. There are technical reasons why astronomers, just studying stars and gases in interstellar space, will be looking at this band of frequencies. An artificially produced signal placed there would be easy to notice.

SETI is an admirable program. Scientists have to do something and are constrained by limited budgets for this kind of research. That's a shame really, I can't think of anything more important than finding out if there are other advanced life forms in the galaxy, but Congress thinks otherwise. They would rather spend money on healthcare and bombing places like Iraq, instead of giving scientists the resources they would need to fully explore this question. Right now SETI is surviving on private donations by forward-looking individuals like Paul Allen (founder of Microsoft with Bill Gates).

Now let's get to the bottom line of what SETI is looking for. This kind of search makes some big assumptions about what kind of aliens are out there. You're assuming that they're scientifically oriented, peaceful and benign, and social in the way mammals on earth are. None of these assumptions has any real validity, except for the scientific one. To attain enough technical skill to send a radio signal, aliens or extra-terrestrials will have to know science. But we can stop there.

We have no idea what the social structure or personalities or motivations of intelligent aliens will be. Now we know from the Drake equation that there are likely quite a few civilizations out there somewhere in the universe. I think its reasonable to assume their dispositions fall on a Bell curve type distribution. Some are going to be nice, some middle-of-the-road, and some outright hostile. They may or may not have any wish for contact with other civilizations. That's impossible to know.

In fact, they may want to destroy any civilizations they come in contact with.

If you remember the old Twilight Zone series, then you'll recall the episode where the benign aliens come from space to save earth from atomic destruction. They convince large numbers of earthlings to jump on board a ship to journey to the home planet. When its too late, the earth people discover that the aliens actually enjoy eating different species they come across in the galaxy.

While the Twilight Zone is a fantasy, such a scenario may not be all that far off from the truth. Many naïve scientists like to believe that getting more advanced means getting more peaceful. But has that happened on earth? Not at all. We're as violent as ever. Consider the time period from the birth of Christ to the year 2000. World War 2, which resulted in the deaths of about 60 million people, including some by nuclear weapons, occurred more or less in 1940. So about 97% of the time-span from Christ to the modern day had already passed. Were humans any more peaceful? No, humans were violent is ever, if not the most violent they had ever been. Being advanced scientifically doesn't correlate with peacefulness by any means.

Scientists might respond by saying, well you invent nuclear weapons, then you MUST get peaceful or destory yourselves. That may be, but what if peace is attained via a brutal dictatorship like the Nazi's? Suppose they had won World War 2, conquered all of earth and then embarked on a space program. What would their attitude have been running across slightly less intelligent life on say, Mars?

This is all fantasy and hypothetical, but the point is we cannot assume in any way that aliens will be benign. Being scientifically advanced doesn't make you any more ethical or moral. Let's go back to the idea that temperament falls on some sort of Bell curve. Really aggressive species may be outliers, but they might be the ones who are really successful. Knowing that science and technology approach and that earth could be near a so-called “singularity” after which computers develop without limit, they might be inclined to destory us so we don't infringe on their galactic empire. Some civilizations may even be evil, and like the aliens in the Twighlight Zone episode, they might actually enjoy enslavement or eating other aliens or who knows what.

Given that aliens sending signals out and engaging in interstellar space travel are likely to be far in advance of us scientifically and technologically, it may be wise for us to keep quiet. Its OK to study the universe in a passive sense for these type of signals. But we might think twice before announcing our presence to the universe and potentially alerting aggressive species that could destory a solar system in a blink of an eye that we are here.

Do Animals Have Souls?

You have no doubt that you're conscious. But what about your dog? Does your dog or cat experience life the way you do? Sure your dog can't read, but does he experience pain, love, hot, cold, joy and sorrow? Or is he a biological machine?

Most of us would probably say our dog or cat is conscious, at least on some level. But throughout history many so-called great thinkers (Descartes and more recently Daniel Dennett) would say no, animals are not conscious, they just appear to be so. To them, an animal is nothing more than an automaton. A complex molecular machine that gives the appearance of having a spirit. Descartes believed that humans had a non-material mind/soul. Dennett, on the other hand being an atheist believes humans are automatons too, but have consciousness that arises from "complexity". So to him we are akin to nothing more than complex biologically based computer programs. Animals may or may not be complex enough to have consciousness "arise" from "complexity", in one interview he boldly asserted dogs and cats were not conscious in any way.

Philosophers aside, its obvious that animals have consciousness. Anyone who owns a dog or cat or horse knows this. Perhaps people try to convince themselves animals don't have conscious minds because it makes it OK for us to abuse them. If dogs are biological machines, no different than the computer on your desk, then Michael Vick can fight and kill them, and Chinese fur traders can skin them alive without feeling an ounce of guilt. To recognize that animals have consciousness and by extension souls means humans have perpetuated great crimes on this planet by abusing the life that shares it with us.

Well let's look at the basic facts. What is consciousness? It can be described in a loose way as you're experiencing life, kind of sitting in a movie theater in which the external world is played for you on a screen. As this happens, you have feelings-love, hate, fear, joy. You have memories of the past, and hopes for the future. You feel as though there is an "I" that exists and flows through time, and you can form transcendant connections with others. Notice none of this has anything to do with "intelligence", at least once a certain threshold is reached. Does that threshold only happen when we reach humans?

It is hard to verify if another being shares these characteristics, indeed some philosophers have gone so far as suggesting we can't even know if other human "beings" are conscious. That's a bit silly, and I think although you can't verify it with 100% certainty, to most people its self-evident ("obvious") that animals share many aspects of consciousness with us.

For example, its obvious that dogs experience fear. Its obvious dogs experience happiness. Its obvious dogs form connections, with people and other dogs. Its obvious dogs remember the past, including people who were in it. Dogs see the world through their own two eyes. Who can doubt there isn't an "I" behind those eyes? Otherwise why would they have them?

I single out dogs only because many people have owned them and this is their direct experience with animal life. The same paragraph applies to cats, to horses, and also to rabbits, pigs, and cows. Maybe even snakes.

The existence of the "senses" is a clue that a conscious mind exists. The senses are a connection between the external world and the internal mind. This calls into question many of our abusive behaviors. If you hit a rabbit on the road, you've ended a life. If pigs are crowded into a factory farm, these are living minds enduring torture.

This isn't to say we should never eat meat or hold a funeral if you run over a snake on the highway. But why not treat animals better? Let animals on farms live free range lives, so that they can enjoy a life in the field before they are "slaughtered" so that we might eat and live. Drive more carefully on the highway so that if possible, you can avoid hitting that rabbit trying to cross the road.

Do animals have souls? As much as we can connect the mind to a soul, the answer is yes.

The painting shown in this article is available here.

Does the Mind Survive Death?

Does the conscious mind survive death? If so does it ALL survive death, or just our "core" self?

 

Consider that the brain is closely tied to conscious experience. And we know that upon death, the brain disintegrates and dies. With it goes all of our memories and things we've learned, like how to ride a bike or do algebra.

 

But what about things of a more personal nature? When you think about what's really important, you're probably going to lean towards matters of the heart. Psychic phenomena and interpersonal connections cut to the core of who we are a lot more than algebra or calculus does. Is it possible that interpersonal, emotional part of our being survives death? Do the connections between a mother and child exist outside of time and space?

 

Thinking about the mind, it seems like my core "inner" self, what we call "I" exists unchanging throughout life. Yes, tastes may change and you may learn something new like how to speak French or ride a skateboard and form new memories. Learning French might make you more interesting at a party or useful on a trip to Europe, but does it fundamentally change who you are? The answer seems to be no. You are still you after learning French. These extra things, like learning French seem to be tied to higher parts of the brain. But maybe consciousness resides somewhere else.

If the higher parts of the brain are involved in learning complicated activities, maybe its the lower centers, the limbic system say-that's involved in the generation of conscious experience.

 

One interesting theory is that the brain doesn't actually cause consciousness. Instead its a receiver of some sort--just like a radio receiver. In this view, consciousness exists as part of the universe as a whole.  Or maybe saying its a "part" of the universe isn't accurate, maybe its woven into the universe at a fundamental level. The brain, or at least some part of it, taps into consciousness by somehow receiving a signal from the universe at large. In this theory, your soul or conscious mind transcends time and space and is not separate or distinct from the universe at large. Its manifested in the physical here and now by the receiver, which is the brain structured to "tune in" to your consiousness the way a radio can be tuned in to a particular frequency, and then picking up a specific radio station.

 

The part of the brain that does this must be in the so-called lower centers. "Knowing" (learning French or calculus) isn't the same as being more conscious. A man who doesn't know calculus is equally as conscious as a man who does, although the latter has more knowledge. This applies whether comparing two individuals or the same individual through time. In other words, I am equally conscious before and after learning French, its the same "me" even if I'm able to chat with people who don't speak English that I couldn't converse with directly before. I feel as if I have the same "me" inside that I did at age 5, age 12, and age 20.

 

If the conscious reciever of the brain is in the so-called lower part of the brain, this would indicate most if not all animals are conscious. Yes a rabbit can't speak French, but that doesn't mean the rabbit doesn't experience its life, along with happiness, excitement, or fear, the way you and I do.

 

Something else that's interesting about viewing the brain as a receiver is that death becomes irrelevant. If you smash up the radio on your desk, that radio can't pick up 98.3 FM anymore, but the signal generated by 98.3 FM is still there-all around you and ready to be picked up by another radio that tunes into the station's signal. Is your consciousness always there, able to be picked up if only the right receiver is constructed? This makes the possibility of reincarnation make sense from a physical perspective. Or another idea: a synthetic reciever could be constructed somehow out of some currently uknown technology that could do the same thing. Then a persons mind could remanifest in the physical. Certain people such as Ray Kurzweil have proposed that a person's mind could be "downloaded" to an advanced computer system allowing for a type of immortality. 

 

Right now our scientific knowledge on these topics is limited at best. 

Dr. Joye Pugh Interview : parts 3 & 4

Parts 3 & 4 of interview with Joye Pugh. 

UFO Filmed Off British Coastline

Film of strange cylindrically shaped craft flying by British coastline. 

Caravaners were left baffled when the mysterious cylinder hovered over a busy campsite in Brean, Somerset. They claimed the unidentified black metal object stands out clearly against the blue sky, where it can be seen darting up and down for more than 10 minutes. 
Local police reported no unusual activity, but witnesses were left convinced they had seen an extra-terrestrial spectacle.

Original Source

John Hogue's Prophecies : War with Iran?

Dreamland interview with John Hogue discussing war with Iran. A year and a half old, and maybe a bit dated since the Republicans are out. But could war with Iran still happen? 

According to Hogue, Nostradamus often spoke of Iran and the importance of the re-emergence of Israel in the modern era. Nostradamus referred to the "True Serpent" in his writings, which Hogue says is a reference to the United States Navy. In 2002, George W. Bush asked the Navy to fly a revolutionary era flag with a rattlesnake on it that says "Don't Tread on Me". Nostradamus said the True Serpent would attack Persia when allied with Turkey. The U.S. is of course, allied with Turkey, and Persia is modern-day Iran. Fascinating stuff. Listen to the interviews below.